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User blog:AstroMeow/I think I feel a celebration coming on!
As most of you probably heard, the Supreme Court in the United States made marriage equality legal in all 50 states yesterday. Many of the people I interacted with after the fact were very positive and celebratory. (Keep in my mind that the vast majority of my friends are straighter than rulers, which is why that made me happy.) I was celebrating, too, but the ruling also got me to thinking. Two years ago, only 14 states plus D.C. had equal marriage rights for same-sex couples... and Oregon wasn't one of them. Two years ago, I thought I wouldn't be able to get married even if I wanted to. I never thought I'd see the day when my entire country would be forced to embrace it. There was always the idea of moving to a state or nearby country (i.e. Canada) that allowed for it, but I wasn't anywhere near prepared to move to a city like Boston, NYC, or Montreal just so I could get married in the unlikely event that I wanted to. Around the age when I was becoming acclimated to my orientation, there was this fear I had of being bullied by my peers. My best friend at the time was an openly homophobic Mormon who told me that she believed gay people are filthy, hell-bound child molestors. And I had a huge crush on her (but she never knew that, for obvious reasons). After that, telling anyone (including my gay-friendly mother and my bisexual stepfather) seemed like a dangerous notion. But once my homophobic peers had been weeded or scared out of my friend group, it seemed safe to come out. Of course, by seventh grade, most of my friends had already figured it out, so there had really been no point in telling them. I consider myself lucky to have grown up in the first era in history where it's considered okay and more or less normal to be openly gay (not including those 10,000 years when Native Americans embraced and welcomed same-sex couples as beautiful and sacred). Millions who were just like me had to cover up their true identities in order to be accepted by society. James Buchanan (the 15th President of the United States), Oscar Wilde, Marilyn Monroe (yes, Marilyn Monroe was indeed a lesbian), and Eleanor Roosevelt... The list goes on. It's depressing that not only is the list of the persecuted homosexuals of the past millions of names long, but so are the respective lists of the current and future ones. In countries like Russia, Saudi Arabia, Uganda, and three dozen others, the LGBTQ+ community is being persecuted as we speak. Leaders like Russia's Vladimir Putin and Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe have made it their mission to eradicate all of the gay people of their respective countries. It sickens me to think that I can express my orientation as I see fit while millions who are just like me cannot. I wish there was something I could do about it, but my strongest skill (which would be writing) is useless up against Putin and Mugabe. What self-respecting world leader is going to listen to a letter from a 14-year-old girl who stands against everything they live for? People like them are why I'm making it my goal in life to educate as many people as possible about matters such as orientation and gender identity and teaching my siblings that it's okay if they're "different" from the rest of their peers. I'm fighting homophobia by teaching people the facts. I'm fighting homophobia by creating LGBT characters in my future writing projects who are not stereotypes. I'm fighting against homophobia with the encouragement to, as children say during hide-and-seek, "come out, come out, wherever you are." I'm dedicating my life to freeing my chained brethren. What are you doing with your life? ♥ ~ Michaela, the Openly Fabulous Queen Category:Blog posts